mirar

Forms

mirar (first-person singular present miro, first-person singular preterite mirei, past participle mirado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mīrāre (“to wonder at”), the active form that popular Latin used for the deponent mīrārī.^{[2][3][1][4][5]} It is written Old Galician-Portuguese mirar in the cantigas.^[6][7] Vieira derived it from the Spanish verb, but the modern dictionaries take it straight from Latin.^[8][2][3]

The same Latin verb is Galician mirar, Spanish mirar, Catalan mirar, Italian mirare, French mirer and Romanian mira (“to wonder”).^[9][10]

The Latin verb comes from mīrus (“remarkable, astonishing”).^[3][11] It goes back to Proto-Italic *smeiros, from Proto-Indo-European *sméyros (“laughing, smiling”), and it is cognate with English smile.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is common in the cantigas d'amigo, as in Martin Codax's Ai ondas que eu vin mirar “O waves that I came to watch”, and Pai Gomez Charinho's myrarey, madre, as torres de Geen “I will gaze, mother, at the towers of Geen”.^[6][7] In these texts it means to look with attention and admiration.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to wonder at” gave way in Romance to “to look at”, and Italian added “to aim”.^[9] In the medieval language the verb meant first “to admire” and then “to contemplate”; plain seeing was catar.^[6] Portuguese later narrowed its use, so that it lost ground to olhar, while Galician kept its broad uses; in the south of Pontevedra and the north of Portugal it replaces ver, as in ben te mirei “I saw you well”.^[6]

Derivatives followed: miradoiro “lookout” in the 15th century, mira-olho and remirar in the 17th, and mirante “belvedere” in 1813.^[3] Today the verb also means to take aim at a target, and, figuratively, to face a direction or to aim at a goal.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 13th century – the cantigas of Martin Codax, Pai Gomez Charinho and Pedr' Eanes Solaz use mirar.^[6][2]
• 15th century – miradoiro is recorded.^[3]
• 17th century – mira-olho and remirar are recorded.^[3]
• 1813 – first record of mirante.^[3]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the verb from Spanish.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fix one's eyes on; to gaze at, to stare at.^[2][12][1]
2. To turn one's eyes towards something or someone; to look.^[2]
3. To look long at something in the distance; to watch, to spy on.^[2][12]
4. (reflexive) To look at one's own image, as in a mirror (espelho).^[2][13]
5. (reflexive, figurative) To be reflected, as trees in a lake.^[2]
6. To take aim at a target.^[2][12][1]
7. (figurative) To face, to look out on, as a window on a garden.^[2]
8. (figurative) To have in view; to aspire to, to aim at a goal.^[2][13]

Word family

• mira
• mirada
• miradouro
• mirante
• mira-olho
• remirar

Related words

• admirar
• milagre
• Latin mīror
• Galician mirar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. mirar
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. mirar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. mirar
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. miro
6. ^ a b c d e f Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. mirar
7. ^ a b Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. mirar
8. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 4, 261
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5603
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 335
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. mirar
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. mirar